Four years ago today Charles Kennedy passed away R.I.P.
© Roderick MacDonald, Calum MacDonald 1987
The Story 🔊
More than a week on already and Scottish political and media circles are still digesting the shockwave value of the tremendous SNP victory at the EU election. Except the SNP themselves who hoped for it, worked hard for it and were probably the only ones who fully saw it coming thanks to the outstanding campaign work and feedback from all their activists and supporters from Haroldswick to Gretna Green. First a reminder of what happened, votes and vote shares on an increased turnout that proved once more Scotland's massive will to have our voices heard in the UK and beyond. And what better way to achieve just that than sending three SNP MEPs to the European Parliament for that final mile 🔊. Which might not be the final one after all, if sanity prevails and revoking Article 50 becomes the default option, as some MPs advocate, rather than No Deal.
Interestingly, the sequence of European Parliament elections in Scotland shows that, of all six parties who at some point managed to get MEPs elected from their ranks, the SNP is the only one who never failed to get representation, even in the old days when Scottish MEPs were elected from eight constituencies on FPTP and Winnie Ewing won the Highlands and Islands seat four times before the UK switched to regional PR for all subsequent European elections.
The main narrative now is that ruling parties and the hitherto dominant EU parliamentary groups fared poorly under a two-pronged assault from the Greens and the various shades of populist-nationalist far-right. Which is sometimes true and sometimes not and you can factcheck it anyway now that the full results are available. Here is how the SNP's result compares to other ruling parties, or senior partners of a ruling coalition, in a representative sample of EU countries. Colours denote their European Parliament parliamentary group affiliation (EPP, ECR, ENF, ALDE or S&D and I think you can guess which is which).
By the way the SNP's claim that they had the best result of all ruling parties in Western Europe is only 'almost' true. The Labour Party in Malta did better on 54.3% and we wouldn't want to piss off the Maltese even if the whole country is just the size of Edinburgh, or would we? They do have a veto in the European Council, after all. Besides in Eastern Europe, Fidesz in Hungary on 51.5% and PiS in Poland on 45.4% also did better than the SNP. But of course that's just three out of twenty-eight EU member states, so well done SNP.
Back home, both Scottish Labour and Scottish Conservatives have been abject failures at the EU election. Even with some of their voters seemingly coming back home after contemplating a Brexit Party vote, Conservatives still scored their worst result in Scotland since 1865 when they bagged barely 15% of the vote to the Liberal's 85%. But today's Scottish Conservatives and Unionists have their head so deep up there arse they tried to spin it as a success. Using a whopping clobbering as evidence that 'delivering Brexit as promised' is the priority, whichever version of it the Ruth Davidson Team stand for this week, is just another illustration that denial is not just a river in Egypt, but might be one in Lothian too. The record-low Conservative vote also means Ruth Davidson's obsessive-compulsive anti-Independence case is now dead in the water. Even John Curtice said so, so it must be true.
Labour did even worse with the bulk of their Remain-supporting voters boosting the credible Europhile parties, SNP and LibDems Their 'constructive ambiguity' has been proved a dead end because people don't vote for oxymorons. But they are more than ready to support clear and principled proposals of the kind the SNP offered during this election campaign. Sadly the Scottish Twig Office of English Labour have more pressing matters on their hands now, like choosing between explosion and implosion as the most fitting end for a once great party.
All this creates an interesting new configuration with the LibDems emerging as the only Unionist party with any kind of momentum, at least for the time being. Not quite what I would have put a tenner on even just a few weeks ago but stranger upsets have been known to happen, especially in Scotland. And there was also a weeish hint of this in recent polls with LibDems up 3% on the previous election in both Westminster and Holyrood regional lists voting intentions. Then of course Scottish LibDems have a history of undermining their own case so you have to wonder how long the current surge will last, and consider it might die down more quickly than it took their UK-wide EU-induced wave to concretize.
An Aitanreachd Àrd 🔊
As I said already, but I don't mind repeating myself, an important side-effect of the EU election is that it validates ex-post-facto all polls that have the SNP around 40% at other elections. So let's just have a look at what the most recent GE polls have to say, all fielded in the run-up to the EU election and by the same pollsters. So them being right on the SNP vote at the EU election makes me think we can believe them to be right on the GE voting intentions too.
The sequence of seat projections from these polls show that the SNP could bag a different number of seats on the same share of the popular vote. That's the Second Law Of FPTPics: what matters most is how far ahead you are from the nearest opposition, not just how many votes you get. First Law Of FPTPics being of course: first come our first and fuck 'em all. Then as always there is more than meets the eye or fits the math.
First of all I seriously doubt that LibDems could actually bag five seats. Their only remote chance is North East Fife they missed by only two votes in 2017. But since then the SNP MP Stephen Gethins has become one of the leading voices for a People's Vote so this would nullify the LibDems' main talking point as the one Europhile party and offer Gethins better than even odds at reelection. Then on to Edinburgh South where Labour-ish MP Ian Murray was reelected only through massive tactical voting from the Morningside Tories who will probably come back home at the next election. Finally the Tory brand has become so toxic that even David Mundell and John Lamont might not survive the next GE even if they start as slightly favoured. So my best educated guess is that the SNP could probably bag as many as 55 seats or even more, no matter what current math says. Time will tell.
© Bob Dylan, 1963
Always The Winner 🔊
Holyrood voting intentions have been polled three times recently, and importantly after the Brexit Party emerged as a major force all over the UK. So these polls most probably reflect correctly how much of the arch-Leave vote would switch to the New Model Blackshirts and how many of the principled Remain voters would switch to the born-again LibDems. And more importantly they show that all the reshuffling takes place within the Unionist camp only while the SNP steadily come out as the first party and doing better than just a few months ago.
Here are the seat projections from each of these three polls. So they say we have three possible futures in the cards: the same pro-Independence majority, a slightly increased pro-Independence majority, a slightly reduced pro-Independence majority. Before you sigh it off as so self-evident that even a ten-year old with a brain could have predicted just that, look twice and consider what the polls do NOT say. None predicts the pro-Independence majority being overturned in favour of a Unionist one. Which is quite a change from what we had at then end of last year, but consistent with the trend we have since the beginning of this year. Earlier polls fielded in March even support the idea that an increased pro-Independence majority could be the most likely outcome.
Then there is this weeish thorn in everybody's arse: the New Model Blackshirts bagging eight seats. Which is NOT the direct result of the popular vote but of the way the current AMS works. With seven seats at stake under true PR the de facto threshold would be 12.5%, far above what polls credit the Brexit Party with. But the compensatory-seats-for-FPTP-losers system lowers this to 5-6% depending on multiple factors, just low enough to allow the Brexit Party to sneak in through the barn's backdoor. So expect some weird moments when they are faced with having to perform real parliamentary work. Then how could a party whose sole consistent guideline has been 'we must be true to our mandate and we have an unalienable right to leave this Union' object to a parliamentary majority saying 'we must be true to our mandate and we have an unalienable right to leave this Union'? Uh…. they could…. or couldn't they?
Breaking The Chains 🔊
Now an important step has been taken towards IndyRef2 with primary framework legislation tabled at Holyrood. Interestingly the Scottish Government have acted more swiftly on this that their previous statements had led me to expect, which was some time mid-June. Guess nothing beats a decisive electoral victory to strengthen one's resolve. And the few among the 19ish Tory PM-wannabes who dared come out of their swamp with 'No Means No' received a well deserved backlash from the SNP ranks, First Minister and Cybernats all together in this. And our best answer is definitely 'Hope Means Hope'.
We have now three recent legitimate Independence polls, that is ones asking the exact question that was used in 2014. With undecideds and non-voters removed they have yes on 47.3% (Panelbase, 16-23 Apr), 49.4% (YouGov, 24-26 Apr) and 47.9% (Panelbase, 14-17 May). Since the IndyRef2 question was included all three times in polls that also predicted the SNP vote share at the EU election right, it's safe to assume the Yes vote is currently slightly above 48%, or a significant 3.5% gain on the 2014 result. Then we can only dream of where we would be now if the SNP had not flubbed the 2017 GE campaign in a way that caused such a massive slump in Yes voting intentions back then. But let bygones be bygones and hope the new bolder and more determined approach will soon bear fruit and take the Yes voting intentions to such a level that an IndyRef2 victory becomes the most plausible outcome even if facing the sleaziest and vilest of all possible Better Together reboots. The trendlines since 2014 support this, with the momentum clearly on the Yes side for more than a year now.
Obviously all this works if IndyRef2 uses the neutrally-phrased question already used in the 2014 referendum, that calls for a straight Yes-or-No answer. Not a convoluted and obfuscating question like 'Should Scotland remain in the United Kingdom or leave the United Kingdom?' that the Electoral Commission seems willing to consider as an option and uncoincidentally was used by Scotland In Union in the polls they commissioned recently. The extent to which such a wording is disingenuous and manipulative is beyond debate and as such it should be dismissed right away. Fortunately it's not up to the Electoral Commission to decide but to Parliament, and as it turns out most likely the Scottish Parliament after the Referendums Bill passes. Then of course if blatant manipulation is the only way arch-Unionist have found to prevent the Scottish people from expressing their true will, it just shows how desperate they are.
Incidentally you surely remember some concern was expressed within the SNP, including by myself, that supporting a People's Vote was the wrong direction as it would open the door to a 'confirmatory referendum' on Independence some time after IndyRef2 if Yes won it. But the basics of a possible People's Vote have changed as it is clear now it would no longer be a confirmatory vote on the terms of the severance deal, but an outright reboot with Remain and Leave again on the ballot, a confirmation of the principle itself rather than of the way the initial vote could have been implemented. Same logic can be applied to IndyRef2, which would be the confirmation (or hopefully reversal) of the initial vote, on the principle itself and not on the technicalities. So we wouldn't need a confirmatory IndyRef3 because IndyRef2 itself would be the confirmatory vote.
Something's Got To Give 🔊
The Westminster System is broken and the EU election was just the first episode of the last season. What comes next is possibly foreshadowed by that shocker YouGov poll that had the two 'main' parties tied for third place and bagging fewer votes combined than either of them did individually in 2017. And there have been ripple shockwaves Up North into Scotland too.
LibDems first as they are supposed to be the big winners of the EU election and of any forthcoming GE. Then their leadership contest might not send the best image of themselves with top contender Jo Swinson setting fire to Scottish media with an unprovoked provocative talking point that finds no basis in the real world. Guess many LibDems will find Ed Davey is a man of many talents after all and besides he has better odds at holding his seat than Jo, or hasn't he?
On to our Tory friends, Ruth Davidson now finds herself in a weirdly difficult situation after sucking up to Boris Johnson in a shameless way that would have made even the Ross Thomson Of Old blush. Of course we already knew that, if given a choice between taking a principled stand on anything and shoving her snout deeper down the trough, Shouty Ruth would choose the trough any day. But she might have got it wrong this time as now Boaby Snatcher won't even openly support Johnson while already six Ruth Davidson Team MPs support another of the soon-to-be-19ish Tory PM wannabes. But then Donald Trump endorsed Johnson so Ruth might enjoy the company….
The Scottish Twig Office of the English Labour Party have again painted themselves into a corner, but they're all right Jack, it was red paint. Then their current civil war will probably not stay civil for long as Richard Leonard is now fair game for everybody. Except those who did not resign yet from the frontbench, all three of them. Only surprise is that they don't have a leadership contest of their own yet as they usually do after every election. Guess that Richard asked around and nobody answered. After all he already managed to take Labour down to a single-digit result so why not let him take charge of the next election too as it can barely get even worse.
Best for last, as usual Scottish Greens are desperately chasing after their fifteen seconds of airtime, which they fancied getting this time by putting pressure on Nicola Sturgeon to do something she is already doing. Only downside is that it makes them look dumb as in 'pretending not to know the difference between primary framework legislation and secondary legislation', which I thought was part of Basic MSP Training.
Then all might be saved from ridicule by the bell as the system finally breaks down. Because it will, we just don't know when and how. Yet.
Saor Alba Gu Bràth
© Roderick MacDonald, Calum MacDonald 1987
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